‘We Are Their Voice’ – Massachusetts Pro-Lifers at March for Life

Participants in the 46th annual March for Life walk east on Constitution Avenue in Washington D.C. on Friday, January 18, 2019. Photos by M.J. McDonald.

WASHINGTON D.C. — Amid tens of thousands at the March for Life, Emanuel Donovan of Wakefield carried one of the two posts holding up the Arlington Catholic sign.

“I’m here because I believe in the rights of the unborn. We need to speak for them. We are their voice,” said Donovan, a 17-year-old junior, as the crowd was slowly making its way from the National Mall to Constitution Avenue.

He was one of 19 students from the school, and one of many more school groups and church groups from the Archdiocese of Boston.

Andrew Fasullo, 28, who teaches theology to eighth- and ninth-graders at St. Mary’s in Lynn, helped chaperone a contingent of about 30 students from the school.

“I support life. This is something that’s very important. And I’m so excited to see so many young people out here. As a teacher, I couldn’t be more proud to see the students out here supporting this,” Fasullo said as the crowd was slowly making its way from the National Mall toward Constitution Avenue.

The 46th annual March for Life on Friday, January 18 drew enthusiastic pro-lifers who heard Vice President Mike Pence, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, and former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, among others, at a rally on the National Mall, followed by the march. President Donald Trump addressed the crowd by video.

The march protests the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which legalized abortion throughout the United States.

Moving at a leisurely pace, it took about two hours for the crowd to move just about a mile and a half, from the National Mall between 12th Street and 14th Street east on Constitution Avenue, up Capitol Hill, and south on 1st Street, ending at the U.S. Supreme Court building behind the U.S. Capitol.

Although it had snowed the night before, there wasn’t much accumulation, and the temperature midday Friday rose to the mid-40s. About halfway through the march the cloudy sky turned sunny.

Bagpipes, drums, a trumpeter playing the National Anthem, and a lone tin whistler standing on a snow pile on the south side of Constitution Avenue were among the informal musical accompaniment to the march. Early in the route a group of high school boys sang “Flower of Scotland” a cappella, followed by other songs.

This year’s march included pro-life groups from Australia and France.

Signs announced secularists for life, feminists for life, and liberal Democrats for life. Roman Catholic diocesan groups, churches, and schools from the eastern half of the United States were prominent.

At the end of the march, not far from the steps of the main entrance to the Supreme Court building, women who had had abortions and now regret them told their stories into a microphone.

The National Park Service stopped providing crowd estimates for gatherings a couple of decade ago, but March for Life organizers estimated the crowd at between 200,000 and 300,000.